CREEMORE, ON – Creemore Springs Brewery hits its 25th anniversary this year, and to mark the occasion, the pioneering Ontario brewery has teamed up with one of Germany’s oldest breweries to produce a special limited edition beer.

Creemore Springs Altbier is a traditional German-style ale brewed with the help of Düsseldorf’s historic Zum Schlüssel brewpub. Creemore Springs brewmaster Gordon Fuller and head brewer Bryan Egan visited Zum Schlüssel earlier this year to learn about altbier in the city where it was born, and the brewers there generously shared some of their centuries-old proprietary yeast which was used to brew Creemore’s version of the style.

The new beer is described in its release announcement as follows:

Altbier is a clean-tasting, copper-colored ale with a finely balanced, noble hop bitterness and a rich, almost nutty maltiness. In the finish, it impresses with gently lingering hop aroma. The unique character of the Altbier stems largely from the special yeast with which it is fermented. Altbier yeast ferments the beer very slowly at a very low temperature (cold-fermented). After fermentation, Altbier, unlike normal ales, is matured and mellowed for several weeks close to the freezing point. In other words, in the cellar, Altbier is treated more like a lager than an ale.

Creemore Springs Altbier will be available exclusively in Ontario, on draught at select bars and restaurants, and in 8-packs of cans at the LCBO, the Beer Academy in Toronto, and at the brewery retail store.